OneandDone

In hockey, there’s a phrase for scoring on a pass with only one swing of the stick, ‘one timer.’ We often talk about instances that occur in life because they are rarities, i.e. the blue moons that occur. They’re such unique experiences that they stand out against the everyday, common practices or events of our ‘normal’ world. Sometimes, there are even nostalgic events that force to remember that one time, or those series of events that occurred at some significant point in time.

These events happen at work, at home, with friends, on your own. I often drive about and see some oddity and call my colleagues in the offices to ‘share’ in the marvels of every day. Kids will remember the funny, situations, or examples of when Joey got in trouble for xyz.

I bring this up, because I recently found a one timer of unique proportion. The amazing thing to me though, was that this one timer was a whole series and a trip full of extraordinary events. My colleagues and I traveled for work and stayed at a hotel called, One Ocean Resort, in Jacksonville, FL. The name says it all (ONE). The hotel and staff clearly know their brand, identity and how to convey it without a hiccup. Every encounter from the moment we arrived (car door being opened), to seeing cleaning staff, wait staff, bar staff, the maître’ d , the restaurant, gift store, maintenance staff, etc. was full of smiles, pleasantries, and genuine happiness in doing their jobs, and happiness being where they were.

Being in an HR field, I had to dig further into the how and why of it all, but was pressed for time. In the observations I had time for; I found that the staff members that were there all embraced a few common traits that we can learn from:

Happy. Every employee acted as though they were thoroughly happy to see any guest at any time, whether or not they were occupied with their job (from folding sheets to serving food, or cleaning up a broken glass).

Engaging. Every employee took the time to say hello with a smile, even if they were on their way to doing something else. This strikes me as particularly odd because usually when you pass people in the hall, or in the elevator, there’s that sense of avoidance or “I won’t look at you if you don’t look at me” type of feel. That simply wasn’t present here.

Yes-minded. There wasn’t a “no” in the joint. Any question you asked, no matter how small or how big, it was answered with a “certainly,” “you bet,” or “absolutely,” and there was always the “can I help you with anything else?” instead of the hum drum, “you want fries with that?”

Seldom do we have the opportunity to have service provided to us that makes us really feel celebrated, appreciated, and valued. This reminder is not to tell us that good service can exist, but that we can all provide it. You could look at this in one manner as pointing to the lack of this high caliber service in our everyday lives. We shouldn’t have to be marveled by the service, but we are. For us at AccuStaff, it’s a reminder to look for every day examples of how we can make each one of our customers (internal or external) not only feel like they’re receiving exceptional service, but feel inspired to continue to pay that level of service forward.